Brush and Chisel, an exhibition of painting and sculpture by Robin and Chris Sawyer, opens Friday, January 10th, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The exhibit pairs artworks from the Sawyers in unexpected ways, sometimes crossing boundaries and exploring the two mediums through the investigations of color, surface, and optical perception. Robin Sawyer’s paintings, conversely, engage with her husband’s sculptural concerns by taking up ideas long associated with three-dimensional art, such as balance, composition and context. By combining elements of painting and sculpture, these works exist beyond well-known restrictions of what art can do and upset the balance of previous ideas of what art can be.
Brush and Chisel can be seen through February 15th during gallery hours: Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 4pm or by appointment.
About the Artists:
Robin Sawyer’s abstracted figures and landscapes seem to present themselves with an inherent mystery that begs the viewer to look further. In all her work, she is primarily interested in gestural expressiveness and dynamic color juxtapositions. Robin’s paintings have been widely exhibited in California, and both nationally and internationally collected. Her paintings are in the permanent collections of the Monterey Museum of Art, the Triton Museum of Art, various corporate collections, and the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. Robin was juried into the Carmel Art Association in 2021.
Artist Chris Sawyer enjoyed two successful careers in functional three-dimensional works of art—furniture design and fine home building—before devoting himself full time to sculpture as fine art. Chris began working with clay as a young boy. His high school education provided excellent background in the mechanical and industrial arts. He later took studio courses in sculpture at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. In his retirement he is now free to explore stone cutting, woodcarving, fabricated steel and cast bronze full time. He derives his abstract imagery from animals, the human figure, and geometric forms. He was juried into the Carmel Art Association in 2013.
